Free Republic

Revolutionaries such as John Dewey, Margaret Mead, Margaret Sanger, Herbert Marcuse and Wilhelm Reich, all of whom waxed poetically about the Soviet Union, inspired progressive educational and social policies that weakened support for organized religion, marital fidelity and the family while empowering the state. With the help of like-minded people in Hollywood, they hammered away at social conventions of all kinds. The weapons of choice were radical individualism and moral relativism, which they peddled on college campuses to credulous liberal faculty who passed it on to their students. By the time the 1960s rolled around, with the advent of the...

In the spirit of fast-rising white Republicans who say dumb things about race, Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel can now add his name to the list after Mother Jones uncovered a 2006 tape where the Tea Party darling bragged about not wanting to pay slavery reparations and only knowing how to hit on girls and find the bathroom in Spanish. (The Wall Street Journal reported on tape on Thursday.) McDaniel is challenging fellow Republican Thad Cochran for his U.S. Senate seat.

The University of Wisconsin–Superior became the latest school to join the Unfair Campaign, which looks to bring attention to the “unfairness” of being white. The campaign’s slogan is “It’s hard to see racism when you’re white” and claims that “society was set up for us.” Below is a PSA ad: Video at link. A UWS spokeswoman told Campus Reform that the university is sponsoring the campaign because it is an “opportunity on our campus to talk about all privilege and to create conversation” as well as to “learn and to grow together.” The university is planning to hold events with...

Leftists are masters of language manipulation. Through clever clichés, their ideology permeates the popular culture. These catchphrases come with built-in assumptions/delusions about the way the world works – or doesn’t. (Expressions like "pay their fair share of taxes" incorporate a certain mentality about the issue at hand.) Swallow the cliché whole, and the hook is firmly embedded. This is Part VI of my ongoing series on language mutilation – "Lib-Speak: A Lefty-Con for the Age of Obama." At the end, there are links to Parts I-V.

When libertarians, paleocons, neocons, and Republicans are confronted with a shrieking liberal they usually shoo it away. That’s easy if you don’t live in New York City, Berkeley, LA, or Madison, but those of us mired here in the jungles of hysteria have to come up with other solutions. It takes a certain type of masochist to live this Sisyphean lifestyle. We can’t bitch about Obama’s ridiculous spending because Bill Maher told them Obama has spent less than any other president. We can’t rail against Fast and Furious because Chris Hayes told them Obama is pro-gun. Whenever you criticize the...

This is the fourth installment in a series on liberal language-manipulation – the ways in which the left’s terminology comes loaded with hidden assumptions. If you even tacitly accept these catch phrases, you’ve lost the debate before it starts. For instance, the expression “same-sex marriage” is based on the preposterous notion that “marriage” (as shaped by biology and theology) is even remotely possible between two people of the same gender. Accept the assumption, and you are reduced to fighting on the fringes. (Example: Is it good for children?) Since the left controls most of society’s idea-generators – the mass media,...

The left thrives on language-manipulation, what George Orwell called “Newspeak” in his novel “1984.” It’s not a tax hike; it’s revenue enhancement. It’s not racial spoils; it’s affirmative action. Instead of class warfare or punishing productivity; call it making the rich pay their fair share. It’s not anti-Americanism, it’s historical revisionism. Lib-speak is poison dipped in chocolate – toxins lethal to the economy, the culture and individual liberty. The idea is to hustle the unwary, to make them think they’re buying charity, equity, sweetness and light, when in reality the left is selling variants of a creed that’s failed miserably...

And in fact, you do LOVE all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more. 1 Thes 4:10 So he finally threatens to withhold grandma’s Social Security check if America doesn’t allow him to steal more of their money. He claims we haven’t sacrificed enough when looking around my town and all the foreclosures, boarded up businesses and unemployed there has been plenty of sacrifices. The only ones who haven’t had to sacrifice is the gummit. The only parking lots with new BMWs are public worker lots. How about they give back all...

When I accepted an invite to lunch at a leadership summit sponsored by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, one of America’s better chambers, I had no idea I would hear a veritable Gettysburg Address of passive-aggressive “moderation.” The speaker was David Dillon, the CEO of the Kroger Company, America’s second largest retailer. His listed topic--“Winning Management Styles In Today’s Challenging Economy”—gave no hint of the provocation to come. The speech derived its lasting power not from its style or its substance, but rather from its pure distillation of what one British wag has memorably called “smug and counterfactual Whiggishness.” Beyond...